I Stand Corrected
by anotheropti
Summary: No one cares when you're wrong, but I've been at this far too long to act like that when we should be in perfect harmony. *One-shot*


**A/N: **This is actually from a very old, unfinished thing that I recently got the inspiration to complete.

Title and summary from Vampire Weekend's "I Stand Corrected."

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><p>Everything runs like clockwork in Ann's life - wake, work, sleep. There were a thousand menial tasks and insignificant events between those three things, but in the end that's all she has. Save for when she sleeps, then the dreams can begin, but even those are the same. They all culminate in one way, with a familiar face and her unfamiliar hands, from that singular person that Ann has to forget to think about more and more often.<p>

But even that yields a similar fate; even the worst that she has to say to her just makes Ann recede into her fantasy and her dreams of dark rooms, hot skin, and shared words.

Driving into work is the same - parking in the same space, greeting the same on-call doctors, opening the same locker and taking out the same scrubs. Ann's day is going to be the same and everything will be plain. She doesn't even have much to do for three hours in the morning - not even a kid with a busted knee or anything. All the rooms look the same, they smell the same, everything's... plain.

But that's Ann's life. It's boring, things take their predicted course, but she's actually happy with that. Life is almost comfortable. Pleasant and formulaic, like the same salad she eats for lunch every single day. Like the same seat in the cafeteria. Unlike her visitor just after lunch, a call that she apparently missed resulting in April standing at the front desk, impatient. She's pulling at the thin jacket she has on, April's long fingers jittery, before she looks up at Ann.

"Hey," the young girl says to her, almost shyly.

"Hi...? What are you doing here at... one?" Ann checks a clock, trying her best to keep an incredulous look on her face.

This wasn't how the day was supposed to go. No surprise visit from April, no contact with April at all if she could help it, and definitely not that look she has on her face. Eyes unable to meet Ann's directly, April looks around infrequently and brushes at her bangs more often than Ann knows her to.

"You asked me... y'know, the other day why I hated you," April looks down again and she takes a deep breath.

She steps forward and Ann's flat, steady heart rate speeds up. Her regular breathing, that pattern that's the same every single day, is interrupted when April is only six inches away from her. Six inches that Ann could stretch her hand out through and touch her face softly, not expectantly or with intent - just one touch. But that's what happens in a life with risks.

"And you just laughed in my face, yeah I remember," Ann nods, pursing her lips. "Did you just wanna come here and laugh at me again, because I actually have to work, unlike-"

Somethings just happen. Ann knows not to wake up and expect a messenger bird with a little note tied to its foot telling her everything that'll happen that day. There won't be some text from a mysterious person with her life planned out ahead of her, not quite like Ann wants, and that's okay. So life will be day-by-day and formulaic. Ann's okay with that, she really is, and she's accepted that this intern will fall for her ex-boyfriend and ignore her.

But, some things just happen. Like Ann forgetting about her schedule and that they were in the lobby of the hospital when April crosses a shrinking distance to Ann.

"It's easier to pretend to hate you than it is to; to..." she trails off, April's lips hovering just far enough from Ann's to be intoxicating and infuriating.

"To what?" Ann asks selfishly, April's breath mingling hot with hers.

April's hand reaches up and in some way Ann expects this to be an insanely cruel joke, April slapping her or punching her or whatever that hand intends to do. Instead she does what Ann dreams about - it feels her cheek, warm and skin vibrant at the contact. With that feeling stored forever Ann closes her eyes, hoping that when she opens them the surroundings won't melt into her bedroom for the next in an uncountable number of times.

Instead she sees April, feels her thumb run along her cheekbone, and a dimpled smile rise slowly on the younger woman's face.

"I don't wanna pretend anymore," April says without skipping a beat, that thumb still in motion.

"I-"

Ann intends to ask her what she means, and why she's so close because they're never like this, but April silences her with her lips. It's likely brief, but the movement of April's lips under hers and the contact of that hand and knowing that she's leaning up just a bit on her toes hits Ann all at once. There's no expectation here, from either of them, and that's what makes Ann's hands go to April's waist in a hopeful grasp.

She's hopeful that this isn't some meticulous prank, and when April's eyes open again and her mouth has traces of Ann's along them along with that coy, almost unwilling smirk Ann holds onto that hope. Ann will hold onto that hope like she holds onto April's hand when she leaves work early. Some things just happen, and some people aren't what they seem, and Ann's okay with that too.


End file.
